E3 2017: Final thoughts

E3 is well behind us now, but distance gives us a new perspective. While the last few years have seen some pretty huge shock announcements, I’ve got to say this year was pretty tame in comparison. All the shows were pretty good, but there wasn’t the wow factor of, say, a Shenmue 3 or Final Fantasy VII Remake announcement from previous years. The only shock was the foul language coming from the mouth of the monkey from the Beyond Good and Evil 2 trailer!

The sleek and small Xbox One X has the power, but does it have the games?

Microsoft had their new Xbox One X console to unveil which, despite the daft name, looks pretty powerful; although apart from Forza 7, they didn’t have any big-hitting exclusives to show off the power of their new console. While Anthem and Metro Exodus looked great, these games will also be available on the PS4. What they did show was a variety of games from a wide spectrum of genres, with Cuphead, The Last Night, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Sea of Thieves and The Darwin Project all looking pretty decent. Player Unknown Battlegrounds being a timed console exclusive is also a pretty big coup for them, but is also quite annoying for non-Xbox owners, who are forced to wait to play it.

Shadow of the Colossus looks great, but is there more to it than upgraded visuals?

Sony stuck to games trailers with very little talking; and while Days Gone, God of War and Spider-Man all looked really good in action, there was a sense of déjà vu about the games being shown, with a lot of the games looking similar to Horizon: Zero Dawn and The Last of Us. The remake of Shadow of the Colossus was the biggest surprise of their show, and it looks fantastic.

Super Mario Odyssey was one of the best games shown at E3.

Nintendo had a decent E3, with Super Mario Odyssey looking like it could be another classic game from them. While the announcement of Metroid Prime 4 was a nice surprise, I will wait to see some actual footage before getting too excited. Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle also looked surprisingly good. Another nice surprise was Nintendo Switch cross-platform play with Xbox and PC gamers for Rocket League and Minecraft, and it’s a real shame Sony aren’t willing to open their network to cross-platform play too. Perhaps they need some motivational encouragement from Shia LaBeouf!

While they weren’t at E3, I was disappointed that Rockstar didn’t show off more of Red Dead Redemption 2, or have anything of note to announce. I would have loved to have an announcement of Bully 2 or Agent (if indeed it actually exists!). I was also disappointed that Nintendo didn’t announce Pikmin 4 or have any info on the Virtual Console for the Switch. Sony also disappointed me with a lack of new, compelling games for PlayStation VR. While Skyrim, I’m sure, will work well in VR it’s still an old game, and teleporting around the world ruins the immersion for me. In fact I don’t know why Sony don’t release updated Move controllers with thumbsticks. Perhaps they have a huge stockpile of the originals to shift first? While I would like to buy into PlayStation VR, after being disappointed with Sony’s support of the Vita, I’m wary of parting with over £300 if they don’t support the headset with enough software, and end up ditching it like they did their last handheld.

My favourite trailers were for Wolfenstein 2, Super Mario Odyssey and A Way Out from the developers of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. I loved the original Wolfenstein, which was an old school first-person romp set during WW2, but with a supernatural spin to it; and this sequel looks like they’ve ratcheted up the action and the humour. A Way Out looks like it could be a brilliant co-op game, as you and your partner attempt to escape from a prison. Super Mario Odyssey looks like Nintendo in fine form once more, with a fun-filled adventure in an open world. It was also good to see a trailer for Beyond Good and Evil 2, although the foul-mouthed monkey, while quite amusing, felt out of place.

As well as bad teeth this character in Beyond Good and Evil 2 also has a nasty tongue on him!

So this year’s E3, for me, wasn’t a classic. There were enough new announcements and trailers of some pretty good looking games to look forward to in the months and years ahead, however.

Written by Kevin M

I've been addicted to gaming since my parents bought an Atari console way back in the 70's. I progressed to the iconic Speccy, Amiga, and all the Playstation platforms. Having seen games evolve from single pixel bat and ball, to HD constructed environments, gaming has changed much from my early years. Having defeated the rock hard R-Type on the Speccy, the biggest challenge I've faced so far is putting up with the hordes of American teens spouting abuse in the current generation of consoles, noob indeed!

2 comments

Good catch. Kev did indeed say the last game was ‘the original’, but he meant that in context of the new game being called “Wolfenstein II”. And to be fair, the 2009 game was the first in the series with the one-word moniker “Wolfenstein”!

The first game in the series though was “Castle Wolfenstein”, released when dinosaurs still roamed the earth in 1981.